SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton — June 12, 2014 — The poor market for Kazunoko in Japan and the carry over inventory from last year, combined with production exceeding 60,000 tons this year, has led to a very difficult situation for herring packers in Canada and the U.S.
Making the situation worse, it is not clear in Japan whether the low prices will even be an advantage in spurring sales, as some traders say supermarkets will use the lower costs to pad their profitability during the holiday sales season, leaving traders and importers with no margin.
There has been an announcement of prices for Canadian packed herring roe from at least one major packer.
Canfisco made a contract with a major japanese buyer at prices of $7.50 per lb (green roe) for purse seine, and $6.50 for gillnet, and $5.50 for mixed origin.
There is an oversupply of large herring roe this year, so smaller roe produced more by purse seine is in demand.
Last year, the overall price was between $8.00 and $8.70, meaning the Canadian price is down about 20% this year.
In Bristol Bay there is also a lot of confusion over pricing, as Japanese buyers have been very reluctant to accept packer prices given their advantage in the market.
Japanese offers are even lower than some of their intial talk of around $500 per ton, with US packers wanting $700 per ton based on 10% roe recovery.
However, there is a report from Japan that 1500 short tons was sold to China for processing at $575 per ton by Icicle, which is lower than the $600 price calculated on 8.6% roe recovery. This is 30% less than prices reported on comparable sales to China last year, which were in the range of $850 based on that level of recovery.
Taken together these are indications of the lowest pricing for herring roe in several years.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.